27 | November | 2016 | Fishing Report

This past Wednesday afternoon, November 23rd, I fished with Mr. Mike Duecy, his eight-year-old son, Jacob, and Mike’s father, Pat. Mike and Jacob live in Buda, Texas, and Pat resides in Waco.

From left: Mike, Jacob, and Pat Duecy with some hard-earned white bass — post-frontal conditions plagued our efforts on what was forecast to be a solid, breezy day.

Jacob landed this large freshwater drum on a small, live threadfin shad we put straight down under the boat in about 27′ as Pat and Mike worked their slabs. Note the cast on Jacob’s left arm — he didn’t let that stop him any!

I had big hopes for our results Wednesday evening after looking at the NOAA weather forecast early that morning. According to the forecast, after the passage of a mild cold front, and the band of showers on its leading edge, we were to enjoy continued winds at 12 to 14 mph into the evening hours, around 7pm. Typically, the time between a cold fronts passage and before the winds begin to slack off, are excellent fishing conditions.

Unfortunately, not long after we began our trip, the winds began to slack off after they had plateaued toward the end of my morning trip, around 11am. As the wind subsided, so did the bite we were experiencing, leaving us facing a very difficult final two hours on the water. Calm, bright, post-frontal conditions are among the toughest you can face, and that is exactly what we were facing at this point.

In our first two hours we found fish that were fairly cooperative given that it was still early in the afternoon. We used tandem rigs to jig vertically for fish that were holding very close to the bottom. Most of these fish struck the slab, and not the fly on the Hazy Eye Shad tandem rigs we had on. The fishing stayed consistent until right around 3:15pm when the winds began to go alternately calm then would puff a bit then would go call him again, and so on. At this point, the only fish activity we saw was from very sporadic, and nomadic schools of white bass that would randomly pop up in open water very briefly.

Long story short, we put only three additional fish in the boat following the cessation of the winds. The final three fish came from shallow water as a small pack of white bass pushed shad towards the shore in a final, lowlight feed. We wound up with only 25 fish on a very slow afternoon following a fantastic morning. Today, timing was everything, and we got on the wrong side of nature’s “timer”.

The last thing I’d ever want to do while on the water with a youngster is have him or her leave bored and with a negative impression of fishing, so, I tried to introduce a number of transitions by showing Jacob how to fish with shad, having him catch the bait out of the tank, have him press the buttons to raise and lower the ball when we did a bit of downrigging, tap on the bottom of the boat with my thumping stick to try to interest some fish below us, steer the boat a bit, and so on. These things (plus snacks!) I’ve found help keep kids’ interest in the event of slow fishing.

TALLY = 25 fish, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 1:30p

End Time: 5:30p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 67F

Water Surface Temp: 67.5F

Wind Speed & Direction: NW12 at trips start, tapering off to NW9 by 3:00, then going calm to puffing after that time

Sky Conditions: Bright, clear skies following a cold front’s passage

Water Level: 0.20 feet above full pool

GT = 10(R40)

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1627 – vertical slabbing for whites ~45 min.

**Area 1827 – vertical slabbing for whites ~45 min.

**Area 1827 to shore – shallow last light bite on blades

Bob Maindelle

Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service

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This past Wednesday morning, November 23rd, I fished with Barry Erskine, a Killeen native now living in Tyler, Texas, and his dad, George Erskine, also a Killeen native now living in Belton.

George Erskine took this 4+ pound hybrid striper on a live shad I’d brought as insurance against a tough trip. A cold front’s passage was forecast for this morning, and, depending on winds, such conditions can be boom or bust. This morning, it was “BOOM”.

Barry Erskine holds a pair of nice Belton Lake white bass he caught at the same time on a Hazy Eye Shad tandem rig. The rig is anchored with a slab and has a lightweight “teaser fly” up above it.

This past Wednesday morning, November 23rd, I fished with Barry Erskine, a Killeen native now living in Tyler, Texas, and his dad, George Erskine, also a Killeen native now living in Belton.

Barry is a small businessman who got his undergraduate degree from the University of Texas, and went on to get an MBA from Baylor. George is a retired college administrator who worked for many years at Central Texas College.

In the early morning hours, a mild cold front passed through with a thin band of thunder, lightning, and rain. In its wake, cooler, clearer, and drier conditions developed.

The timing for this morning’s trip was just right. We got on the water as the wind velocity out of the northwest was on the rise and fished right through its peak.

From the time the sun climbed above the cloud bank in the east up into the clear sky, the fish fed until right around 11:15 AM when the wind speed plateaued. We began in shallow water fishing under birds that were dining on dead and crippled shad injured by white bass and hybrid striper patrolling beneath in about 22 feet of water. Not knowing how the cold front was going to play out, I netted live bait this morning as a hedge against disappointment.

While Barry and George used blade baits casting off the portside, I hung bait on two downlines off the starboard. We regularly caught quality fish on both methods, including several hybrid in the 4 to 4 1/2 pound class.

After this shallower bite under birds died, we moved offshore into open water and began scrubbing a number of bottom features with sonar. We found fish in two distinct locations and fished them both in very much the same way. If sonar revealed active fish, we used a smoking technique, and if sonar revealed less aggressive, bottom hugging fish, we used an easing tactic. After the action died in a given location, we would “jog” a few boat lengths left, right, forwards, or backwards to reestablish contact with fish that had been nearby all the time but refused to move horizontally over to us.

More on the Erskine’s trip and, about tandem rigging is found in Sunday’s (27 Nov.) Killeen Daily Herald: http://kdhnews.com/sports/fishing/bob-maindelle-tandem-rigging-doubles-the-catch-in-cold-water/article_8f968e64-b463-11e6-a67d-a319425a64a3.html

As the wind increased, the aggression level of the fish did as well. As I saw the bite strengthening at midmorning with winds around 14 mph, I changed us over to a tandem rig, and we routinely landed two fish at a time using this setup. Our fish count stood at exactly 90 fish at 10:30. We agreed to press on until we had reached the 100 fish mark. As I moved us into a new group of fish, we put our 100th fish in the boat, and fished that final school we encountered until the fish quit cooperating. By that time, our tally had risen to 118 fish.

Barry shared that one of the reasons he chose to fish with me was because of the data-rich reports I have posted on my website. When he considered an outdoor excursion with his dad over the holidays and saw in one of my reports how the catch per trip in late November/early December typically outpaces every other month of the year, he decided to come fishing and see for himself.

TALLY = 118 fish, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time: 10:55a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 52F

Water Surface Temp: 67.2F

Wind Speed & Direction: NW9, steadily increasing to NW14, then plateauing there

Sky Conditions: Bright, clear skies following a cold front’s passage

Water Level: 0.20 feet above full pool

GT = 30

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1826 &1854 – casting with blades and downlining with live shad for equal results on whites, keeper hybrid, and a few drum

**Area 1827-1624 – easing tactic with small slabs for interested but still not truly aggressive white bass

**1672-1619 – spot hopped in this vicinity for the last 2 hours of the trip, fishing Hazy Eye Shad tandem rigs aggressively for white bass, short hybrid, and largemouth